PERSONAL NEWSLETTER - UPDATE

I hope that you are all having an encouraging week in the midst of the on-going faith challenges that seem to be growing for everyone these days!

This past week I have been reminded again and again of the story of Joshua and Caleb's courageous and faith-filled report (Numbers 13,14??) at going to scout out the land of Canaan before the rest entered into the land... and the need for us to keep believing God's promises and to keep our eyes fixed on 'taking the land' according to HIS good purposes, rather than allowing the enemy's 'bad reports' to keep us from the blessings God WANTS us to have! It seems the evil one is relentless in his continuous attempts to keep feeding us with lies in the face of God's truth, thereby trying to fill our hearts with discouragement and fear. But may we indeed fix our eyes on Jesus and be continually renewed by His TRUTH, which stirs up FAITH in our hearts... I think of the verse in the New Testament which asks the question about whether Jesus 'will find faith on the earth' in the last of the last days...

May He fill our hearts with His courage so that we will indeed BE and do all that He is calling us to in these days!

I had an encouraging visit with my eye surgeon several days ago! PTL!!! An answer to prayer!! - I have my eye surgery scheduled for July 13!!!! I still need to find out the time... My Mom plans on taking me in for surgery that day since she is planning on staying with me then for a few days, anyway, so it will be nice to spend some days together!

Last week, in the beginning of the week I was having a very rough time, physically, and with my eyesight. In the past few weeks my GOOD LEFT EYE had also begun to start losing vision!

My left eye seemed to be getting worse bit by bit every day and it seemed that if it would keep getting worse at that rate, it was likely that I could be completely blind (now with BOTH eyes since the RIGHT one has already been blind for months) within a few weeks, and that thought, as you can imagine, totally overwhelmed me!!

And so last week the really rough part was that I was struggling terribly, emotionally and spiritually, with the whole thing!

I wondered how I would get around, who would look after me, how I could continue to work, what possibilities I would have for income to look after myself in the future, wondering how I could continue to be involved in the things that I feel God continues to have on my heart, not to mention how it would feel to suddenly be totally blind - in addition to already hardly being able to get around even WITH some eyesight!!, etc.

I also wondered about what my top priorities should be in the next couple weeks if indeed that would be the case, and I wondered if there were things God wanted me to do to get help and take care of these potential problems in the next couple weeks or whether He was just going to handle it on His own, or some combination of the two, etc. My questions to Him were pretty endless and I was getting pretty terrified!

I ended up feeling so overwhelmed I didn't know what to do so just cried and cried and cried on His shoulders for a couple days and that felt soooooooo good! I poured out all my questions and frustrations and fears and I just felt like He was letting me cry and had a sense of Him holding me like a loving Father would and saying that it was okay to cry it all out...even though I didn't feel like He was giving me any answers at the time, it was comforting to just feel like He was listening and interested and caring about what was going on.

After I got it out, I felt like He was asking me when this fear started, and immediately the thought came to me that it was when I started to think about the possibility of going blind in both eyes a couple of months ago.

He then immediately reminded me of all the promises I feel He has given me not only about my other healing but also specifically for my eyes, and then the verses came to me about how He says in the Bible that if even an evil father will not give his son a scorpion or stone if he asks for a piece of bread, HOW MUCH MORE will He, a good and loving Father, give GOOD gifts to those who love Him, etc.

I felt like He was saying that if I was asking Him for healed eyes, (which I had felt He had encouraged me to ask for through a couple passages of Scripture), would He then give me blindness? And immediately I felt like He let me see that I had started becoming fearful because I had started believing the devil's lies instead of His promises, and so as soon as I confessed that and started focusing again on what I had felt GOD had impressed on my heart through His Word and in prayer, the fears started leaving and the confidence and peace began to return, and He has been encouraging me in other ways, too.

Since then, as I'm including in this email, I have had a good report from my eye doctor, and so that is also very encouraging!!

Through this process, though, it was like I had to get to the place where I would be willing to be blind and to trust God to look after me somehow even if I did go blind and didn't understand His ways, and I believe He brought me to that point...yes, getting to that point was excruciating, but now I feel that IF that happened, though I don't believe it will, I feel that I would be able to deal with it much better than I would have before, and would be much less fearful. I would still need to work through a lot more along the way, of course, but I feel so much more confident, again, that God is not going to abandon me in the midst of this whole eye thing, and that's what the devil was trying to make me believe...

Every day since I was crying to Him about this, I have felt that He has encouraged me in a number of ways to keep trusting and believing what He said/says... and a few days ago I felt like He was impressing on my heart that any loving Father would look after His sick daughter, and any loving husband would look after his sick wife, and that He will look after me... and of course He has in sooooooooo many ways all these years, even though I'm not healed yet, but although my life has been full of challenges, it has also been a wonderful life which I wouldn't trade with anyone...

He checked my eyes and said that although there was a very tiny change in the actual results of the tests, there was hardly any degeneration at all since Nov.!! - even though my vision has been getting worse. He is very confident, though, that my right eye will be back to normal after surgery and that it will still take quite a long time for my better eye to get to the place of it also needing surgery, so that was very encouraging!

Thanks again soo much for your prayers and loving encouragement through all of this!!!!!!!!

Please pray that I will not get sick in any way before or during my eye surgery, and also for my eye surgeon's health, so that we can finally go through with this, Lord willing!! MANY THANKS!!!!

I'm gradually getting through your emails and hope to finally have them all responded to in the next few weeks, depending on how long it takes to recover from eye surgery, etc.!!

God be with you all and may you find growing security in His love! A verse He reminded me of again, in this regard, this time with regard to my eyesight and current situation, but which I trust will also deeply encourage you as it has me sooooo many times over the years, is Deut. 33:12....Let the Beloved of the Lord REST SECURE IN HIM, for He shields him all day long, and the one the Lord loves, rests between His shoulders.

CONTENTS

HALLELUJAH!!!!!

I CAN SEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!

My dear praying friends!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

How can I ever thank you enough for all your prayers for me for this whole process of dealing with all the stuff regarding my eye surgery, etc. the past months!!!! and for the eye surgery itself, which took place yesterday!! I am sooooooooooooooooooo grateful for all your prayers and support!! So many of you have written and it's going to take a little bit to get back to you all, but I want to thank you sooooo much for all of your loving support and encouragement, which has been suuuch a blessing!!! THANK YOU!!!!

About the eye surgery...Mom came over the night before and is staying with me the next few days so that all worked out so well, too! PTL!!!

I had COMPLETE PEACE going into surgery and am soooooo grateful to the Lord that He had me work through all that stuff beforehand so I could just rest in His peace. The surgery itself was fascinating to 'watch' from the inside of the eye they were working on...I don't know how to explain it...I don't know what I was seeing since the doctor removed and replaced the lens, but I saw something....it was an odd sound to hear this 'saw-like' machine - sounded almost like a dentist's drill...I saw all kinds of interesting shapes and colors moving around as he was working on my eye. I was sure curious about what was happening... The whole thing only took about 10 min. - actual surgery, though we were at the hospital prepping, etc. for several hours and then had another appt. with my eye doc in the afternoon to make sure it had gone alright. He said my cataract had been a very bad one.

All of the nurses were wonderful and my doctor is fantastic! My Mom was also fantastic! She had to push me all over in my wheelchair and has been a wonderful nurse!! It's great to finally be able to spend some 'holiday' days with her, too, these few days while I'm recovering! : )

Anyway, the surgery apparently was very successful!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! PTL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It also was a breeze!! Hardly felt a thing!!!!

By the afternoon when he took off my patch to see if the surgery had gone okay, was already able to see quite a bit!! It was a very moving experience and I started to cry in the waiting room because I was soo overwhelmed at actually being able to see again!! Then when he checked me out I started crying in his office and gave him a big hug cause I was sooo happy and so grateful!!

Then he put my patch back on and in the evening when I had to take the patch off to put in more eye drops, my eyesight was already better than the afternoon!!!, and I got all emotional again - my poor Mom never knows when I'm going to be crying for joy these days! In the middle of the night I woke up and cried some more as I was just feeling suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuch gratitude to God for this awesome gift!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It makes me think of sooo many people around the world, in poor countries, for example, who don't have access to this kind of help and that makes me so sad!!

I now only have to wear the patch when I sleep, and apparently my eyesight is supposed to be about 20/20 in that eye by about the end of this week!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! This is sooooo amazing!! I can't tell you how wonderful it is to actually be able to see again!! After only being able to see dark shapes moving around against a dark brown background for many months (with that eye), and totally hazy at the best of times in that eye, and now seeing light, color, 3D, dividing LINES between objects and even seeing small dots, and even already being able to begin to READ some things that aren't too small, it just boggles my mind!! I have panoramic vision again and it feels almost like I crawled out of a dark pit into the sunlight!!!!! It feels like any minute I'll be waking up and the dream will be over, but it's TRUE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! and GOD HAS ANSWERED PRAYER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! and I'm sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo happy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

My eye doctor had begun suggesting eye surgery to me about 3 years ago because I was apparently already at the point, then, where it would have been needed, but then with health is it's been and everything else, it just kept going, so it's been a long time that my eyesight has been poor in that eye but not nearly as dark and lifeless in that eye as the past 9 months or so.

THANK YOU!!!! THANK YOU!!!!! THANK YOU!!!!!! for all your prayers!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I'm sooooooooo glad this is DONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! and I told my doctor that when he suggests its time for the other one to get done, I'll book it right aways! :)

I'll try to reconnect with you again soon!!

Please pray for the remainder of the recovery process that no infections will set in...everything is looking GOOD so I trust that will continue!!

I hardly know what to do with myself I'm sooooooooo excited to be able to see again!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

With sooooooooo much appreciation for your many prayers and all your love!!

Much love and prayers,
Grace